Farewell to The Hive

Francois Marchand, Vancouver Sun10.05.2013

Jesse Gander [L] and Colin Stewart [R] in the tracking room are packing up the Lava lamps and equipment, October 3rd, as they close the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs. Stewart is moving and setting up in Victoria and Gander is moving into Vancouver.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

Producer Colin Stewart is packing up the Lava lamps and equipment, October 3rd, as he closes the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs. Stewart is moving and setting up in Victoria.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

A photograph of REM singer Michael Stipe hangs on the wall, October 3rd, at the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

Producer Colin Stewart is packing up the Lava lamps and equipment, October 3rd, as he closes the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs. Stewart is moving and setting up in Victoria.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

Producer Colin Stewart is packing up the Lava lamps and equipment, October 3rd, as he closes the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs. Stewart is moving and setting up in Victoria.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

Jesse Gander [L] and Colin Stewart [R] in the tracking room are packing up the Lava lamps and equipment, October 3rd, as they close the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs. Stewart is moving and setting up in Victoria and Gander is moving into Vancouver.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

A photograph of REM singer Michael Stipe hangs on the wall, October 3rd, at the Burnaby location of Hive creative Labs.Ward Perrin
/ Vancouver Sun

The closure of Hive Creative Labs a decade after it first opened in Burnaby doesn’t come as a surprise.

Stewart talked about his plans earlier this year during a recording of The Vancouver Sun‘s Behind The Music podcast, explaining how overblown costs and new technological trends allowing for better self-recording are eating at the core of his business, and how his family plans with wife and singer-songwriter Kathryn Calder are pulling him away from the Lower Mainland.

Still, despite Stewart’s admission that he is nowhere near done with working behind the board (he even confirmed his “destination studio” near Victoria is a go), The Hive will be missed.

An important fixture of the Vancouver indie rock scene, The Hive hosted a plethora of Vancouver acts that are now touring the globe. It also hosted a variety of international artists looking for the best indie sound around. Stewart and fellow producer Jesse Gander estimate the number of records to have come out of The Hive at close to 800.

It was a big room with a lot of soul dedicated to musicians wanting to make the best music possible, and it will be missed. But Stewart admitted that despite the attachment people may feel they have for the building, he doesn’t put too much significance on The Hive’s closure.

“Let it f — ing shut down,” he said in a phone interview earlier this week. “It’s too expensive. People seem to associate the building with what’s special. What’s special was Jesse and I. The records are what’s good. Jesse’s records are going to be just as good, if not better.”

Gander will now be working at Rain City Recorders with former Hive producer Stewart McKillop, mainly focusing on what he does best: Punk and heavy metal.

That’s not to say Stewart doesn’t have fond memories of the Hive. In fact, you can sense his excitement when he re-lives a few of his past glories, including spending a few days with Cult singer Ian Astbury following the recording of the first Black Mountain album. Astbury, who lived in Vancouver at the time, had expressed interest in doing something with Stewart.

Very little was recorded, Stewart said, except for one short session featuring Astbury and members of Black Mountain and Ladyhawk. Instead, Stewart said Astbury essentially took a few days to tell him his life story.

“I was never a big Cult fan,” Stewart admitted. “They have a couple of songs I like. So I was able to be totally level-headed with the guy.”

And although Stewart said he hardly ever listens to the stuff he records after the fact, he was game to name a few albums that stood out from the Hive days.

Among his favourites (other than Black Mountain‘s famed 2005 debut): Dan Mangan‘s Oh Fortune, for which Stewart won a Juno for Producer of the Year; Gigi‘s Maintenant (a rather obscure French indie pop record he played on); indie noise-rockers Sleepy Sun‘s Embrace; and wife Kathryn Calder‘s excellent Bright and Vivid.

Colin Stewart may have a soft spot for the band’s debut album, but he really upped the ante, production-wise, on the band’s epic followup record, which oozed with prog synths and Bonham-esque drums. In The Future is Black Mountain at their most massive.

Dan Mangan — Oh Fortune (2011)

We have to agree with Stewart here: Oh Fortune is, until the next record at least, Dan Mangan’s most accomplished effort, one that required plenty of string tracking and multiple layers that ingeniously blended indie rock, folk and jazz (by way of Mangan’s incomparable rhythm section).

Yukon Blonde — Tiger Talk (2012)

One of the snappiest pop-rock records ever recorded at the Hive (if not in Vancouver, period), Tiger Talk had all the sparkle of Laurel Canyon folk genetically spliced with the angular chops of the Buzzcocks.

Japandroids — Celebration Rock (2012)

One of the biggest records of the past year, Celebration Rock was acclaimed everywhere thanks to Japandroids not changing much of their signature sound but letting Jesse Gander smooth out the corners just a tiny bit. Celebration Rock is raw, primal and urgent.

Ancients — Heart of Oak (2013)

One of the best heavy metal albums of the year and one of the best Canadian releases of 2013, Heart of Oak signals the arrival of a giant act on its way to big things. Gander (who also understood how to make bands like Bison B.C. sound as huge as possible) takes full credit here.

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